


The World We Destroyed

by Ragga



Series: The World That Is Not Ours [4]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: All Actions Have Consequences, Dark-ish World, Established Relationship, F/M, Gen, Hale Family Feels, M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Spark Stiles Stilinski, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-03-11
Updated: 2017-03-11
Packaged: 2018-10-02 20:42:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,254
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10226924
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ragga/pseuds/Ragga
Summary: They had done it.The Veil had been ripped apart, the Nemeton was unbound and whole, and the worlds were one again. Stiles and Peter couldn't be more content, for they had managed to break out of their shackles and were free to be together at last. Yet not everyone was happy, and the consequences of actions made hundreds of years ago needed to be faced by them all.This is the unraveling of their reality; this is the world they destroyed.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Sooo, it's been a while with this one. I hope you didn't mind the wait too much, I had to clear my thoughts and then I was a bit uninspired; mostly because I was scared I would screw this thing up. Still, here we are, with the prologue-ish chapter into the series' next installment. Not sure how long it will be but at least long enough to resolve what needs to be resolved.
> 
> Also, if it happens that the anon who expressed disgust at the Nogitsune/Scott pairing at the end of _Those Who Won't Let Us Be_ is still with us (which I doubt but thought I'd mention this anyway in case there are misunderstandings), have no fear. Platonic relationships are a thing. Unless even that is too much for someone to stomach with these two in mind.
> 
> Anyhow, onwards!

Peter watched the world collapse around him.

He felt disconnected from the chaos, and wasn’t that a strange thing to feel. He saw Derek fall to his knees, scream his voice hoarse with tears falling down his cheeks like endless rivers. The tracks of the purest waters on earth cleaned the ash off him, leaving behind unmarred skin. Peter hadn’t even realised how unnatural his skin had been, how deep the unseen and hidden scars had been, how clean and free he was when the pain and the burns had been washed away. There was something fresh and new on him, traces of unknown beginnings, something that told Peter that the Derek who had been lost had now been returned, whole and complete again.

But Peter still felt isolated from those around him and looked around, feeling nothing of the reigning terror which had torn its way into the forest surrounding them, screams of horror and pain echoing in the air.

He saw Lydia clutch at her throat, choking the air out of her lungs. Her hair was a bright, shining silver, and her nails were long and sharp. Her shadow was longer than it had ever before been and Peter could see a shadowy crown circling her head. Her eyes, just as silver as her hair, were unseeing and blank like she was watching the world inside her instead of the one on the outside where she had once been so prideful of her appearance. She was vulnerable and frail, yet with a spine of steel and aristocratic raise to her chin, neither something that could be broken even when no one was watching her back for her, alone without her blind followers.

Peter didn’t care a lick about her.

The Nemeton was no longer a giant stump but a great tree in full power, connected to the ley lines and the living magic of the world. Its bark was thick and a healthy brown shade that seemed to glow with power, its leaves green like it was the middle of summer instead of autumn in the cusp of winter. There was a body lying on the ground before it, unmoving and unbreathing, with a figure crouching over it. The figure was distorted and had nine shadowy tendrils - almost like tails - attached to its back and they were all focused on the body of Scott below it.

Yet Peter didn’t focus on them longer than a mere second.

His eyes met the form of the human that consisted of everything Peter adored and cared about more than anything else, the boy whose name meant love in the only language Peter’s heart understood, the music it beat with, the colours it saw.

It was the end of the world, Peter thought, fleeting and brief, and scrambled to where Stiles stood alone in the vacuum of chaos around him. He had no care for anything else but the world in front of him, the boy who had given him a heart and had tied him to him so tight he never wanted to be free of him again.

His boy was clutching at his arms desperately, as if he was trying to stop himself from scratching his arms, legs, whatever he could get his hands onto, like there was an itch that couldn’t be sated. His eyes were tightly shut and there were lines there on his forehead and cheeks and Peter had a vision of Stiles clawing his eyes out, the all-seeing eyes that were filled with trust and care – _love_ , his mind whispered, for the first time ever the feeling was so very clear, and he revelled in the knowledge that he was _loved_ – and he knew there was no crime that was greater than if that sight was forever denied from him.

Peter’s hands finally managed to grasp his boy and he clung to him, tasted the air he breathed and felt the reassuring beat of his heart. He let him go just far enough to be able to lift Stiles’ face to peer on him. There were tear tracks weaving down in patterns and his features were covered with red unevenly but Stiles had never looked more beautiful to Peter than he now did.

They had done it.

The world was ending and they were victorious.

“My heart,” he whispered, his words sending shivers down Stiles’ back. “How do you fare? Please, look at me, love.”

“The world is burning,” Stiles told him, just as quietly, anguish painting his voice black. “It is too bright. There is too _much to see_. I can’t see, I cannot open my eyes, it hurts, Peter, it hurts it _hurts it hurts_ -”

Stiles’ hands shook and, as if they were guided by someone other than Stiles himself, were raised towards his face and Peter knew, he knew, that if he wasn’t there in their way, they would have found their place with the lines and maybe – this time – cut deep enough that

“Shh, dear heart,” he whispered, soothed his other half, his better side, and hugged him tight against his chest. His fingers ran through Stiles’ hair. “You did good. We did it, Stiles. We did it. The Nemeton is whole again, the Veil is gone, and our worlds are united again.”

“How- how is Scott?” Peter closed his eyes briefly before looked at the body lying not far from their feet. “How is he? We freed the tail from his soul, the curse tied to his being. How is he, Peter, tell me, where is he, how is he?”

Peter watched as the nine-tailed Nogitsune rose from his position, seemingly ready to attack at the smallest sign of threat. His eyes, dark as the night, had barely a spark of sanity left in them. Yet there was one little golden glare being drowned in the darkness, fighting to stay afloat.

“Peter,” Stiles begged him. “Where is Scott?”

“What is the ending of all that begins?” the Nogitsune hissed through his teeth, head tilting to an almost unnatural angle. His tails writhed on the ground, licking Scott’s body all over, almost hiding it from sight. “What begins and has no end?”

Stiles startled, his eyes flying open, and for a frozen moment in time Peter saw only white. It was gone almost immediately as Stiles squeezed his eyes shut, whining in pain, and Peter could sense the hurt spread through Stiles’ body.

“He is not recovering,” Peter said softly, caressing his boy’s cheek. He let go of him so he could tear strip of clothing out of his shirt, and another and another, until together the ribbons were thick enough not to let anything through. He tied the band around Stiles’ head, right over his eyes, with a gentle but firm knot. “He is quiet, he is unmoving, he is not breathing. He is lost to time.”

Stiles made a wounded noise, and the pain through their bond intensified. It was grief without end, hatred towards self. “Can’t we do something? He doesn’t deserve this, Peter. He was the key but he was an innocent. He carried the piece inside of him but only because of a chance. He’s my _best friend_ , Peter,” Stiles choked, “I can’t- I can’t _live in a world without him_.”

Peter grimaced, and took hold of Stiles once more. He wasn’t about to let his heart go, never again, not for anyone.

And he would wait until Stiles would heal, all eternity, if it took that.

“More precious than gold, but cannot be bought, can never be sold only earned if it's sought,” the Nogitsune riddled, pacing around the body of a boy once called Scott, narrow eyes staring at them with hunger. “If it is broken it can still can be mended, at birth it can't start nor by death is it ended?”

Peter’s eyes widened and his heartbeat fastened by a notch.

“Who is that, my Wolf?” Stiles whispered, head turning towards the most powerful being Peter had ever known. Nine tails of a kitsune, the Great Trickster, fooled by his own to-

Oh, the way the world worked. So it seemed that the Veil had been lifted from his mind as well. Peter burrowed into the depths of his memories, the deep canyons of his knowledge, and saw the mist twisting and turning until it melted away like poison after the cure to its toxic nature had been administered. Yes, he knew exactly what had happened, all of the past was clear to him now. It was alike to what they had managed to figure out even before, why they had with heavy hearts declared war against their kind, why they knew the world had to be destroyed for them to be together. He felt resentment and disgust in the face of clarity but those emotions were buried under a wave of gratitude; for their time had been tied to the Veil, aging slowed to nothing and present forced to a stop, and without Talia’s mistakes, without the hate of their hunters, he wouldn’t have met Stiles as he would have been dead and buried for years and years _and years_ before his heart would have even been born. If he even had, since time was tricky and Beacon Hills even more so.

Only for that reason alone he was willing to forgive the transgressions made to his person.

But never forget.

Though he was not the one who declared sentences; he was the one who oversaw them carried out. He was not the judge but the executor. And he knew, _he knew_ , that there were people worthier than him to pass judgement on those who deserved it. Peter was done in the grand scheme of things; he had what he wanted, even if he waited with dark glee to sink his claws into Deucalion’s now vulnerable hide, waited for the wish to be spoken in the depths of Stiles’ soul, resonate with power and the need for revenge against the crimes committed to his blood and flesh.

But it was not time for that yet. Now, now it was time for him to do right by the one who he shared a heart with, for he had realised what he had to do to make those rain clouds inside his mind dry and vanish.

“Yes,” he turned towards the Nogitsune and the barely alive spark of his sanity. The monster’s pallor was paling every second, the dark circles deepening around his eyes, and said, “What can touch someone once and last them a lifetime?”

The Nogitsune froze, form coming together again from where it had spilled all over the place, and Peter could once more see Scott next to the Trickster. “Love,” he rasped, standing straighter than before and gold slowly returning to his eyes, momentarily taking over the darkness. “It cannot be bought, cannot be sold, even if it is sometimes made of gold?”

“But freely given it can be received,” Peter ended, and the Nogitsune looked at him like a starving animal. “I can give him what was once mine, for I have his friendship with the boy guiding me and his love to protect me.”

“Peter, what are you doing?” Stiles demanded but he only hushed him, nosed his cheek in reassurance.

“Trust me,” he whispered. Stiles stiffened before relaxing. He didn’t even hesitate when he answered.

“Always.”

Peter shifted Stiles on his arms, beckoning the Nogitsune closer. It stalked over, quick and ruthless, eyes hungrier and more desperate by the moment, darkness creeping in on the gold again, the spark losing the battle little by little.

“What is he to you?” he had to ask. The Nogitsune gave him a demented grin, features still too distorted to make out what he truly looked like, mouth open wide showcasing the sharpest of teeth. Peter gripped Stiles harder, pushing him ever so slightly behind him. The Nogitsune reached over, hand a hair’s breadth away from touching Peter.

“A good state, no doubt is there of it; for those who are in, are entirely out of it,” the monster said, voice cold and greedy for something intangible but which had gained a physical form in Scott.

 _Scott_.

Peter glanced the boy’s unmoving body, wondering if he had, for once, been mistaken. He had always known Stiles had seen something in the boy, something Peter had never been able to grasp, had never really even attempted to for he had no care for a boy so eager to please others without a care for his own hide, and while he trusted Stiles with all his being, he hadn’t been able to truly see what he had. But there he was, lying like the dead and buried, missing something truly essential, and with the most powerful being in the whole world begging for his scraps.

The boy was the Nogitsune’s sanity.

Oh, how the mighty had fallen. He would have to get the story out of them someday soon for his curiosity was burning him from the inside. The things he could write, the lore he could recover, the past he could discover anew. He had his theories and, magnificent and well-thought as they might have been, words never proven had led others wrong before. Oh Talia, the thoughtless, fearful sister of his, you let yourself be cornered until nothing any longer mattered but-

He uncurled his arm from around him, keeping the other one holding Stiles, and immediately the Nogitsune struck. He burrowed his hand into Peter’s chest, clenching over his heart, shattered the bonds he had to it and twisted it out, leaving a space behind that was seemingly just as full as before. Peter laughed aloud, high pitched, elated and in pain, while Stiles exclaimed in alarm. It was over in the fraction of a second, and he fell to his knees, gasping for air. Stiles fell with him.

“Peter? Peter! What happened?!” he yelled, hands making their way along Peter’s body to make sure he was truly alright. Peter grinned, feeling lighter than ever before, freer than anyone around them, and he tugged Stiles against himself and pressed his lips against the tip of his nose. Stiles made a surprised sound, his hands stilling on Peter’s arms. “Peter?”

“Scott’s heart was sacrificed alongside his blood to break free the chains on the Nogitsune and the Nemeton,” he told him. Stiles froze, alert and panicked, fear and grief doubling inside him. Peter soothed him, pressing another kiss on his forehead. “A grand miscalculation, I admit, but we did not have all the required details in out possession. Even had we had, this might have been the only outcome to go with. Yet it will be alright, dear heart, worry not your head over it.”

“How?” Stiles’ voice was choked. “If Scott is – if _my brother_ is – missing his heart then- _then_ -”

“Nor for long,” Peter promised, curled himself around Stiles, watching the Nogitsune over Stiles’ head. “I gave him the heart which was once mine.”

He heard Stiles’ heart skip a beat.

“Peter?” his boy’s voice was small and scared, and Peter suddenly realised how that could be taken; how Stiles might have had to choose between his brother in all but blood and the monster who never left his side, how Peter might’ve made the decision for him and left him to face the consequences alone.

“Shh, it will be just fine. I have no need for two hearts; he can have the one that was frozen years ago and no longer recognises myself as its owner.”

Stiles paused, not settled, not yet, and there was confusion there now as well as curiosity in the blend of emotions swirling inside him. “Two?”

Peter nodded, his movements slightly jostling the boy in his arms, and watched the ritual unfold before his very eyes. The Nogitsune was old and powerful and there was so much to learn from him. “One you gave me, half of what is yours. One I had, useless to me now. There were two but now only one; there is no reason for twice the beat, twice the storm, to linger in one body. You and I are forever, dear heart. Wherever you will go, I will follow; and whenever you will go, so will I. This is our reality, our punishment, our prize; we wanted a change and we gained a certainty. My heart-

“-We are forever,” he repeated, let his words caress and soothe Stiles, and watched as the boy who had died for the sins of others woke up, lifted his head from the ground and howled a very human call of life, gasp of all that made a being alive. The Nogitsune looked at the boy in wonder, hands stilling without an effort, his features twisting and turning before settling into a face not unlike a man, not unlike a fox – a strange mixture of them both and a sight stronger with every passing breath, every beat of the sanity holding him together.

And his eyes, they stayed golden.

“Scott,” Stiles whispered, wonder filling his voice and Peter closed his eyes, savouring the ecstatic happiness and relief and even the pangs of guilt that coloured those bright feelings dark with their sour edges.

“We did it, dear heart,” he said, swaying from side to side with his beloved. “This is the end, this is the beginning.”

“Tell me what you see, my Wolf.”

Peter opened his eyes.

He did.

He told Stiles of how Derek was creating a pool of tears by his feet, hands digging to the ground and how the expressions – the emotions – on his face were warring against each other and how elated but horrified he looked at the same time. He told Stiles of Lydia still watching the world with glazed eyes, gaze turned inwards to see to the depths of her soul. He told Stiles of the Nogitsune holding onto Scott, of Scott who was watching his chest with a look of wonder and incomprehension.

He told him of the lights which were flashing, of the screams he could still hear. He told him of how Cora burst into the clearing, her hair sticking out in every direction with electricity and with a wild look on her face; of Laura whom he could hear over them all, her voice empowered and strong. He told him of the war ceased in the face of adversity, the spirits who were bouncing in wonder, the monsters blinding confusion.

He told him of the restored Nemeton, standing proud and tall above them all; a monument of failure, a statue of triumph.

He told him of the countless restarted beats.

He told him how, “This is the world we destroyed.”

Stiles squeezed his hand and rested his head on Peter’s shoulder.

There was something Peter didn’t tell him though, if only because it wasn’t needed.

No matter what happened next, it had all been worth it. This was where he belonged, what he had sought even when he hadn’t known what he wanted, and what he wasn’t about to let go ever again – not even if all the world turned against him, against them and a war broke out, not even if there was only him and Stiles holding the gates against the floods of terror and hate.

Stiles pressed a ghost of a kiss on the skin he could reach, and Peter closed his eyes in bliss.

It had all been worth it.

They were free.

**Author's Note:**

> Roll credits! Lol.


End file.
